Shift from Chaos To Clarity

Welcome, welcome, welcome to Shedding the Corporate Bitch, the podcast that transforms female corporate executives into powerhouse leaders by showing them how to shed the challenges and overwhelm along with any fear, insecurity, self-doubt, and negativity holding them back. I'm your host, Bernadette Boas of Ball of Fire Coaching, bringing you powerhouse discussions each week. To share tips, advice, and sometimes tough love so you create the riches in your work and life you deserve. Let's do this. Today we are going to get focused, get clear, organized, and excited about your goals, the success you can achieve, and the challenges that absolutely will come up along the way. You're going to move from chaos to clarity, and it's all about thriving in all aspects of your life, living fully, being fierce in pursuing your goals as fears often exist, understand you're gonna achieve more by working less. So we're gonna talk about chaos to clarity today. And what I really love about this subject and what I really want you to walk away with from this discussion is just that you can indeed accomplish far more than you're accomplishing right now. You can accomplish far more by working less, and you can transform all of that into having the social life that you want, having the traveling life that you want, having the career life that you want. Having the relationship life that you want, having every aspect of your life just thrive and prosper and be enriched as a result of you really getting the cobwebs, getting all that chaos outta your head and heart, and even out of your habits and routines and putting it into a structure and a model that will allow you to accomplish more by doing less, be happier by not being so stressed, live fully without compromising, sacrificing, or having to give anything up. So the first thing I want to really address as you go to work on moving from chaos to clarity is the fact that what it will take from you is attention and focus. And with anything, if you put your attention somewhere and then you focus on that something, then that is going to help you to stay on task and accomplish what it is that you want to accomplish, as long as you then don't allow the excuses and all those limiting beliefs to creep in. But I want to also talk about that because it will happen. As I said, there will be challenges, there will be obstacles, there will be naysayers, there will be chatter inside your head and heart that kind of want to push you down. This is all a how-to today, giving you some real great strategies, powerful strategies for helping you to move from chaos to clarity so you would create the riches in life that you deserve. The first thing that I want to discuss with you is what's called the Pareto rule, if you're aware of it. It basically says that 80% of your outcomes comes from 20% of your effort. So think about that. If the vast majority of the results that you achieve at work or at home are going to come from just 20% of your effort, And the way I like to look at effort is 20% of the honey-do list, the work-to-do list, the just-to-survive-do list. So that is kind of where your attention and focus needs to be and where the effort goes into. And so if you look at your current to-do list, at home and at work, and you're getting yourself overwhelmed, and you're getting yourself stressed out, and you're getting yourself frustrated, then what I want to leave you with is the fact that if the Pareto Rule is true and you get 80% of your outcomes from only 20% of that list, or those lists that you have, then that should give you such great relief. Such great confidence, such great breath to just relax, stop pushing, stop killing yourself, and enjoy the ride. So I want you to consider yourself at work and at home as a time manager, because we're talking about Chaos to Clarity. So we have to get rid of all those things that are just causing you to feel as if It takes you 180% of effort to get that 80% of outcome. So we wanna flip that on its head. And I want you to consider that as you move forward, and if you want this week, this month, this year to be successful, then consider yourself to have a primary role as a time manager. All right. Time managers are both a role and a mindset. It's also the mindset of the fact that, yes, I would love to work far less and achieve far more than I'm doing currently. And therefore I need that attention. I need that focus. I need that determination and that perseverance to just keep pushing even when it gets frustrated and hard, because those challenges and obstacles will come. And so a mindset's required that will allow you to say, You know, despite that, because I know there will be challenges and fears and intimidations and struggles, I'm still going to do what I need to do in order to overcome, push through, and achieve my results. Because if your goals and ambitions at work or at home are that important and that true, that you truly want to accomplish these aspirations, these goals, these ambitions, then it's certainly not going to come easy, and it's certainly not going to come without you having to put effort in, having to sacrifice, having to make compromises, having to adjust. I want to hit hard on that because too many people just really would prefer that 20% of effort to create 80% of their outcomes without really kind of putting structure and habits and routines and disciplines and procedures in place. And if anyone comes up with the secret formula of how to do that without any of those things, please let me know. But it does take sacrifice, it takes compromises, it does take changes and shifts and restructuring in order for you to do something different, new, bigger, and better, and to accomplish it. And that's our goal. So as a time manager, I want you to really work on these following practices. And you can email me at BernadetteBoas@BallOfFireInc.com, or even go out to Shedding the Corporate Bitch, find one of our podcasts or this particular episode and leave your comments or even leave your questions regarding any of these techniques that I'm going to be sharing with you today. First off is goal setting. The first thing you absolutely need, even before you put your feet on the ground and first thing in the morning, is that purpose, that reason, that why you're going to get yourself out of your comfortable, warm, cozy bed and go out into this crazy world. You need to have goals. I'm talking your business goals, your leadership goals, your personal goals. Have all of them. And I separate business and leadership for a reason. The first thing people will say to me when I say, what are your goals? They'll sit there and they'll say, well, I have a goal to achieve this objective and to complete this initiative and to implement this project. That's business. Leadership is If you ask yourself the question, what type of leader do I want to be? What do I need to do in order to become that type of leader? Those are your leadership goals. Those eventually get crafted into your leadership goals. What are those skills, traits, qualities of a leader that you want to and need to work on? The next one, once you have your goals, is priority setting. And what this is all about is the fact that your goals, and especially in the SMARTIE methodology, your goals get translated into action. So you have a plan, but that's a laundry list. That's very much like, you know, bringing together your, your at-home and at-work to-do list and you have an action plan. But of course you could have pages and pages. I remember, I'll tell a quick story. 7 or 8 years ago, one of my clients, we had just started working together and I said, I really need you to take an inventory of all the to-dos that you have, all the things that you need to do in order to accomplish those goals, but more importantly, all those other to-dos that you feel that you have to do during your 9 to 5 work hours. So I showed up for our next session and happens to be face to face and he had a yellow legal size— not the other size, letter size— legal size notepad with about 2.5 pages of tasks that he needs to do either to accomplish his goals or the fact that he needs to finish these things within the 9-to-5 time period. And I said to him, "It's not a surprise that you're overwhelmed," because he had everything you can imagine on there. Not that he just had personal and business commingled, but he had personal type of tasks that were taking up so much of his work time and it was eating into his personal time and his weekends. So priority setting is critical. You have your goals. And the first question I'm going to ask you as a coach is, all right, what are just those tasks from that list that you need to do in order to accomplish your goals. And in this case, we're going to talk pure business type of goals. Okay. Business leadership type of goals. What are all of those tasks? And I would say for the average person, about 30% of their list goes away because it is personal and non-business related activities. So then the next thing is to really look at, okay, so I now stripped away the absolute non-relatable tasks tied to my goals. What are those that aren't specifically aligned to the goals that you have? Now, the next tip I would have is too many managers walk into their week without pre-planning what they want to accomplish that week without being proactive about, okay, so Here I have this yearly goal. I'm going to break it down by quarter. I'm going to break it down by month. I'm going to break it down by then by week. And now I know my weekly goal, what I want to accomplish this week, and therefore intentionally and purposely looking at that to-do list of the priorities that are directly aligned to that weekly goal. And a lot of times I suggest to individuals to do that Sunday morning, if not first thing Monday morning. At first, if you're not accustomed to having kind of a priority setting, goal setting type of routine, it'll feel arduous. It'll feel time-consuming. But trust me when I say, once you start building this habit and discipline into your routine, it'll be 5 minutes. Now, yes, things will change. Meetings will come up, phone calls will distract, whatever the case might be. But you can have significant impact and significant control on how your week unfolds if you actually take control of it proactively at the very beginning. And then only pick 1 or 3 each day to work on. And there's no such thing as 2 number 1 priorities, whether that's your boss yelling at you, whether that's your team members yelling at you, or a vendor or client yelling at you. There's always an overriding priority and you're not going to be able to multitask. So you need to decide upfront, what is my number one thing out of these three and start working on it. Now, some things, you know, will carry over days, won't be able to get done in that one sitting or multiple sittings, but you at least focus and attention on that one thing before you're moving on to the second and/or the third. Now, what is really key about this? I often find clients that have their to-do list and they get things done on that to-do list, but at the end of the day, they lay on their couch and/or get on a call with me and they're like, I got nothing done today, last week, this past month. And what I like about picking 3 of those to-dos and really focus and accomplishing them is, as opposed to having 10 things of which maybe you get 1 done and that's like 10%, and so yeah, you're laying on the couch going, I got nothing done, you're only focused on 3 things. And therefore, even if you only got 1 thing done, a third of your list is completed. So that's goal setting and priority setting. Now, attention— we've talked about it. You need to purposely put attention to the task at hand, to the goals that you have, to the action plan that's defined by those goals, the 3 priorities that you pulled off. You need to do whatever you need to do to remove the distractions Remove the interruptions, remove the excuses, social media, email, the phone, people if you're in an office, if you're at home, the kids, the dog, kitchen. You need to find practices to kind of remove all of those. And if you need to, just always please feel free to schedule some time with me to discuss exactly how you can go about doing that. So you can always schedule some complimentary time with me at coachmebernadette.com/discoverycall. Now, time blocking. Time blocking is a tool that has transformed so many of my clients' lives. And that is simply, I want your calendar, your work calendar, to reflect everything that you're gonna be working on that week. So it could be meetings, it could be appointments internally or externally, meaning personal appointments that you have that you just can't avoid. And then it's if you are going to be working on priority number 1 and it's going to take you today and part of tomorrow, block it out, put it on your schedule. And especially if you're in a company that has shared calendars, well, then people won't book you into your time slots. Now, of course, I know it happens, but at the same time, if you are time blocking everything that you're doing, I would even time block if you need to take a break, if you want to go to the gym during lunch, if you want to leave the office at a certain time. And yes, maybe you pick up your workload at home depending upon the urgency of getting something done. If you can take your goals, get those action plans, set the priorities, put attention and focus to it, time block your calendar so you, you know, are blocking out time for the work that needs to get done. So now it's dedicated. And my routine is like, first thing in the morning, I look at blocking out my goal setting. I mean, it's like 10 minutes. I block out my social media work. I block out reading time. I block out dog walks during the day. Now I do work from home, so that makes it easy, but I block those things out. And then I find the white space, meaning the open slots from meetings and calls, to then assign what's on my priority list, those 3 items. And if you can get yourself in a habit of treating your work as seriously as you treat your personal appointments, meaning if you have a doctor's appointment, you're going, right? You're not going to necessarily move that around unless something's urgent at work. But make sure your calendar is as complete as possible and then live by your calendar. The next one would be yes management. So yes management is all about the fact that you have to manage when and how often you're saying yes versus no. This runs rampant in corporate when we have bosses and bigger bosses and bigger bosses. It runs rampant with women more so than men. The inability to say no, the inability to feel as if someone else's priority is more important than your priority. And I would challenge you to make it a habit of just simply questioning the priority when anybody asks you to do something that is not on your priority list. So the boss can come in and say, hey, I need this done in the next couple of hours, I need it by tomorrow, or the end of the week. There is nothing wrong with you saying, okay, but Joanne, I have these other priorities as well. Where does your priority fall on these list of priorities that we have? You would be surprised how often someone, whether it's a boss or a teammate or whomever, even a vendor and a client, will say, you're right, take an extra couple of days. So be sure that you're managing your yeses Learn to ask questions and challenge anyone, even your boss. And if you're a manager, leader, executive of any level, then that's your role and responsibility. I mean, that's what you should be doing. And lastly is fear management. I mentioned this early on around the fact that we all have challenges, we all have struggles, we all have things that we're gonna need to overcome. And one of those things are fears that we have about taking on a new project, asking for a promotion, asking for a raise, asking for the sale, giving an employee hard feedback. We all have fears. And the key though is to find the evidence that proves that fear is not right, is not true. So an acronym for fear that I love is False Evidence Appearing Real. We've all had fears in our life, but guess what? We're still standing. You're still standing. You're still breathing. You're still doing what you're doing, being you, right? So don't you want to hit yourself when all of a sudden you spend so much time worrying and stressed out and scared of doing something, and then when you do it, it's all of a sudden like, oh well, that was easy. So recognize upfront that maybe you're dealing with imposter syndrome. Maybe you're dealing with limiting beliefs of not being good enough, smart enough, worthy enough, ready enough. Any of those ring true for anybody? And then find the evidence of whether it's true or not. So you're not ready enough. If you are ready, you're going for the wrong job or the wrong opportunity, because if you're ready, you should be going up much higher. No one's 100% ready for something, or the role or position or the project or opportunity they're going after isn't a challenge. It isn't the next step. It's not leveling up. Say to yourself, all right, so I'm feeling as if I'm not ready. Is that really true? Do I have the experience? Do I have the encounters? Do I have the relationships? Do I have the skills? Do I have the role and responsibilities? If you're scared of asking for a promotion because you don't feel like you deserve it or you've earned it, really do the homework, do the research, find the evidence to prove it wrong. Oh no, no, no, I've overexceeded, I've taken on new challenges, additional bonus opportunities, I've had stretch goals, so I certainly have earned asking for a promotion. False evidence appearing real is what fear is. And you just simply need to acknowledge that, acknowledge you have that fear, and then look for the evidence that it's not true. And then what I want you to do is what I call honor your riches. I want you to actually take an inventory of all your skills, your experiences, your expertise, your accomplishments, your successes, even your lessons learned and best practices.. And I want you to lean on those. I call them riches because we spend so much time on the negative, on the lack, on the inadequacy. We don't spend enough time and lean on our riches, what really makes us who we are and what brought us to where we are today. Those are going to propel you forward. They're going to motivate you. They're going to inspire you. They're going to want you to recognize that, yes, I am worthy. I am deserving. I am capable. I am ready, so forth and so on. Small steps lead to big results. So recognize that all of that stuff you have on those pages, in those notebooks, on your phone, whatever the case might be, if you bring them together, get them organized, get them focused, get them planned out, get them prioritized, get them time blocked, put attention and focus on them, then deal with the head games of saying yes when you want to say no, and/or being scared or feeling unworthy or undeserving, and all you need to do is find the evidence. Package that all up and build that into your daily routines, disciplines, and you will create the riches in life that you want. So If you go to ballofirecoaching.com, you can go to sheddingthecorporatebitch.com, find this episode and leave your comments or your questions regarding any of it. But also, if you want to talk and you wanna discuss your situation or your need for structure and discipline or any one of these practices that we've discussed, then go to coachmebernadette.com/discoverycall and schedule some complimentary time. It's all about you. And let's make sure that you have what you need in order to move forward and create the riches in life you deserve. Until next time, thank you so much for being here. Check out all of our episodes on sheddingthecorporatebitch.com. Leave your comments, reviews, and ratings on Apple Podcasts as well as YouTube, and I'll see you next time. Bye!